Chanute finally responded on May 14. He refused to apologize, but did try to clarify his earlier remarks. His health was bad and he planned to travel to Europe for a rest. “I hope, upon my return … that we will be able to resume our former relations.”
He did not make the trip, nor was there any further contact between them. Octave Chanute died at home on November 23, 1910. The family wired the news to Wilbur, who immediately boarded a train for the funeral in Chicago.29
Other old friends were slipping away. George Spratt, for example, was firmly convinced that the success of the Wright brothers had grown from his suggestion of measuring the characteristics of an airfoil by directly balancing lift against drag on a test rig. He believed that he deserved some credit for that, and wrote to tell the Wrights so.30
Wilbur responded on October 16, 1909, admitting that Spratt’s idea had sparked their own imaginations. They had acknowledged that debt, and attempted to repay it by making all of the wind-tunnel data available to him. “I cannot help feeling that in so doing we returned the loan with interest, and that the interest many times outweighed in value the loan itself.”31 Spratt did not agree, and another friendship was ended.
Even Albert Francis Zahm, whose behavior toward Orville during his stay in Washington in 1908 had been nothing short of unctuous, demonstrated that his friendship had a price. When Wilbur visited him in Washington in November 1909 to obtain a single affidavit for use in the preliminary hearings, there did not seem to be a problem.
The first indication of trouble came in a letter from Zahm dated January 27, 1910. “You will probably regard me as a renegade friend,” Zahm noted, “if the defense in the approaching litigation succeed in securing my professional service against you, but I hope you will remember that I have never declined, or hesitated, to serve you when the opportunity arose.”32 The message was clear: Zahm’s services as a witness were for sale to the highest bidder.
The Wrights had no intention of paying any man to tell the truth. Wilbur replied swiftly, expressing his regret that Zahm might decide to testify for Curtiss, but assuring him that “such service carried out in a spirit of fairness” need not interrupt “the friendship that has always existed between us.”33
Zahm disagreed. On February 7 he wrote back: “Apparently you are not very much concerned about my position in the patent litigation, seeing that you made no effort to secure my professional services.”34 Unable to accept that the Wrights did not regard his support as worthy of purchase, Zahm immediately signed up with the Curtiss defense team.
Zahm, convinced that the Wrights had rejected him, spent the rest of a very long career (he died in 1954) working to discredit them in turn. In his testimony, and in his Aerial Navigation, published in 1911, Zahm argued that the invention of the airplane was the result of a slow accretion of information rather than a flash of brilliance in the minds of Wilbur and Orville Wright. He claimed to have suggested the need for three-axis control himself in a paper presented at the 1893 Chicago conference, noting that “the combination of the torsional wings and a double rudder, either fixed or movable, has been public property since that date.”35
The judges considered his testimony and rejected it, a fact that only stiffened his resolve to attack the Wrights. Wilbur and Orville had found a bitter and tenacious opponent, whom they would hear from again.
At the very moment that friends were deserting them, the Wrights were themselves sued for infringing on a patent. Both cases bordered on the ridiculous. Still, they had to expend time and energy in dealing with them.
The first of the two suits began in January 1910, when Charles H. Lamson, who had constructed one of the machines that Herring had attempted to fly at Kitty Hawk in 1902, began making outrageous statements in the newspapers. Lamson, now a Los Angeles jeweler, claimed that he was the true inventor of the “airship feature” in dispute in the Wright-Curtiss trial. He stated that, at Chanute’s behest, he had constructed a glider for the Wrights and shipped it to their camp at Kitty Hawk in 1902. As the whole world knew, the Wrights flew their powered machine the following year.
Wilbur sent Chanute a copy of the Lamson article, citing it as an example of the sort of “misrepresentation” with which Chanute’s name had been connected and noting that “the story ought to be corrected.” In point of fact Chanute was very much at fault, though there was no malice involved. He had told Lamson that he was commissioning the glider as a gift to the Wrights. The Wrights simply refused to accept it as such. That original misunderstanding provided a firm foundation for the rest of Lamson’s fantasy.
Lamson took it all very seriously. In January 1901 he had obtained a patent on a special kite design, including the rocking-wing principle embodied in his 1902 glider. Convinced that the Wrights would never have flown without uncovering the “secrets” hidden in his patent, he brought suit for infringement. His lawyer, Israel Ludlow, was an aeronautical pioneer of some repute, having flown a series of manlifting kites of his own design. It was the very definition of a nuisance suit, but it dragged on until 1912, when the Federal Circuit Court for the Southern Division of Ohio, Western Division, handed down a final ruling in favor of the Wrights.36
The second suit brought against the Wrights was even less firmly based in reality. Inventor Erastus E. Winkley had developed and patented an automatic control device for sewing machines. Obsessed with the notion that the Wrights had stolen his invention as the basis for their own control system, he filed for an interference hearing with the Patent Office in May 1912. The Commissioner of Patents ruled in favor of the Wrights that August.37
chapter 31
“THE MONTEBANK GAME”
January 1910~April 1912
Any hope of returning to a life of research vanished before 1910 was many months old. Wilbur took on much of the legal burden. Orville was involved as well, giving testimony and making periodic court appearances, but he devoted most of his time to getting the production side of the operation running.
The small crew of carpenters, mechanics, and machinists set to work in rented quarters at the Speedwell plant built several prototype Model B aircraft and two versions of a special racing design, the Model R, or Roadster. The serious business of producing aircraft for sale began after the move into the new factory on Home Road in November 1910. Once established there they could build two airplanes a month, complete with engines.
The problem was what to do with the airplanes once they were built. The sale of a single airplane to the Army had, for the moment, satisfied the demand for land-based military flying machines in the United States. It was never a large market—before 1915, when Orville left the company, the Wrights sold a total of fourteen airplanes to the U.S. Army.1
As Chanute had prophesied, the exhibition business was booming. The first American air show, held in Los Angeles in the spring of 1910, drew enormous crowds. During the weeks that followed, the aviators who had flown at Dominguez Field spread out across the nation, introducing thousands of spectators to the miracle of flight.
Curtiss never doubted that there was a fortune to be made in exhibition flying. Undaunted by his failure to fulfill the Hudson-Fulton contract, he traveled to St. Louis to perform with the dirigible balloon crowd—Tom Baldwin, Roy Knabenshue, and a newcomer named Lincoln Beachey. He did well at Dominguez Field, leaving $6,500 richer than when he arrived.
He captured an even more impressive prize on May 29, 1910. At the time of the Hudson-Fulton Celebration, the New York World had offered $10,000 for a flight from Albany to New York City. Curtiss flew the 151 miles in 2 hours and 51 minutes, averaging 52 miles per hour. In addition to the major prize, the Aero Club of America awarded him the Scientific American Trophy for the Albany to Poughkeepsie leg of the journey. A three-time winner, he now took permanent possession.
More important, the Hudson River flight electrified the public. The New York Times devoted over four pages to the story, which was front-page news in every other paper in town. The owners and editors of big
city dailies immediately recognized the value of sponsoring flights of their own. The Philadelphia Public Ledger and the New York Times put up $10,000 for the first round trip flight between the two cities. The Times offered an additional $25,000 for the first flight from New York to Chicago. Not to be outdone, William Randolph Hearst established the ultimate distance prize—$50,000 for a flight from coast to coast in thirty days or less.2
Charles K. Hamilton grabbed the New York to Philadelphia prize in short order. Taking off from Governors Island early on the morning of June 13, 1910, he flew to Philadelphia and back in eleven hours, with two stops along the way.
Hamilton was a legend among the devil-may-care fraternity of the air. A small man with an uncontrollable shock of red hair, he seems to have gone through life with a cigarette perpetually dangling from his lips and “an aura of alcohol generally surrounding him.”3
Hamilton began his aeronautical career as a parachute daredevil, venturing aloft beneath a hot-air balloon, cutting loose several thousand feet in the air, and returning to earth by opening and discarding one parachute after another. The crowds loved it.
He mastered the airship, accompanying Roy Knabenshue on the county fair circuit for several years, then traveled to Hammondsport in the early fall of 1909 determined to fly an airplane. When Curtiss refused to accept him as a student, Hamilton waited until no one was looking, walked out onto the flying field, and soloed without instruction.
It was typical. Hamilton was a fatalist, a man without fear. Suffering from tuberculosis, he did not expect to live long, and flew accordingly. During his short career he ran up an incredible string of crashes, breaking both legs and one ankle, smashing his collarbone, fracturing at least two ribs, dislocating an arm, and getting badly burned by steam escaping from a smashed radiator. “There is little left of the original Hamilton,” his colleague Lincoln Beachey once joked. Yet Charles Hamilton died in bed on January 22, 1914, not yet thirty years old.4
Wilbur and Orville were aghast at such behavior. At the same time, they recognized that they would have to find a Hamilton of their own if they wished to make money building and flying airplanes. Against their better judgment, they decided to enter the exhibition business.
They put themselves in experienced hands. On January 17, 1910, Wilbur cabled A. Roy Knabenshue, asking him to come to Dayton to discuss the organization of a flying team. Knabenshue agreed to an arrangement with the Wright Company and was on board by mid-March.5
Knabenshue would handle bookings, logistics, the pilots and their problems. Orville accepted responsibility for selecting the team members and teaching them to fly. In addition, he would handle the lucrative contract flight-training program for Army and Navy officers and teach the handful of wealthy civilian enthusiasts who could afford the price of an airplane and instruction.
The flying would be done at Simms Station, the old Huffman Prairie. They would send out a working party to prepare the field and construct a new and larger hangar when the weather eased in the spring. In the meantime, Orville began operations at a winter flying field in Montgomery, Alabama. He and Charlie Taylor arrived with a new airplane and five student pilots on March 24.6
Walter Brookins, “Brookie,” was the first of the new Wright-Fliers. Twenty-one years old, he was a West Side kid whom the Wrights had known since he was four. He had been a student of Katharine’s at Central High and had spent every free moment of the last few years hanging around the bicycle shop. Orville took Brookins up for the first time on March 28. Like all the Model A and B machines, the craft flown at Montgomery featured an elevator lever at the far right of one seat and the far left of the other. A single wing-warping control was mounted between the seats, so that it could be shared by both pilot and student. As Orville was right-handed, Brookins automatically became a left-handed pilot.7
The Wright exhibition team in training at Montgomery, Alabama, in 1910.
The training went smoothly. By April 30, Brookins was flying with Orville as a passenger. The young man soloed on May 5. The other students were a varied lot. Arch Hoxsey, a twenty-six-year-old automobile racer whom Knabenshue had hired to tune his dirigible engine in Pasadena, was, like Brookins, a natural. A. L. Welsh, a young Washingtonian who had seen the Wrights fly at Fort Myer, also showed promise. Spencer Crane, a Dayton automobile enthusiast, did less well and dropped out of the program. J. W. Davis, of Colorado Springs, failed to qualify as a pilot but remained with the exhibition team as a mechanic.8
Orville and Welsh left for Dayton on May 7 to begin operations at Huffman Prairie. Brookins, suddenly promoted to the rank of instructor, remained behind in Montgomery until May 25 to give Hoxsey additional time in the air.
Orville began flying at Huffman Prairie on May 10. He completed Welsh’s training in short order and started instructing a fresh batch of pilots for the Wright exhibition team. Duval La Chapelle, an American living in France who had worked as Wilbur’s mechanic in 1908–09, was the first. La Chapelle, who failed to mention his poor eyesight, nearly destroyed a hangar at the conclusion of his first solo.
Frank Coffyn, a wealthy young New Yorker, had pulled a few strings for a chance to become a member of the team. After seeing Louis Paulhan fly in New York in the spring of 1908, Coffyn persuaded his father, a vice-president of the Phoenix National Bank, to arrange an introduction to Wilbur. “Well, Frank, you come out to Dayton in about a month,” Wilbur told him, “and we’ll see how we like one another.”9
Ralph Johnstone, a Kansas City man, was another Knabenshue candidate. A pure daredevil, he had made his living as a trick bicycle rider since the age of fifteen. Mid-air flips from a springboard were his specialty. Phil O. Parmalee, J. Clifford Turpin, Howard Gill, and Leonard Bonney rounded out the Wright team.
Teaching all these men to fly kept Orville busy. He made nearly 250 flights from Huffman Prairie in 1910, over 100 of them during the last three weeks in May. Change was in the air. Orv test-flew the first Model B early in July, and conducted the first experiments with wheeled machines on July 21.10
Wilbur flew only once, on May 21. It was the last time that he would ever fly as a pilot in the United States. Four days later, Orville took his brother up as a passenger, the only time they flew together. That was also the day on which Milton made his only flight.11
The Wright team flew its first exhibition at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on June 13–18. It was especially exciting for Frank Coffyn, who soloed while the meet was in progress. Walter Brookins had his share of excitement, too—he was descending from a record altitude of over 6,000 feet when a valve broke, forcing him to glide in for his first dead stick landing.12
The Wright crew was very green indeed, and most of the flying at Indianapolis consisted of straightforward laps around the track. The promoters were disappointed. “The age is one of speed and competition,”
remarked one speedway official, “and I want to see a flock of airships fighting for first place under the wire.”13
Things grew more exciting as the aviators gained experience. Ralph Johnstone set a new Canadian altitude record at Montreal early in July. Moving on to Atlantic City, Brookins won $5,000 for exceeding his own world altitude mark. Curtiss was there as well, earning $5,000 for a series of flights over the ocean. He was training his own exhibition team at Hammondsport, and intended to take on the Wright Fliers at every opportunity.
The Curtiss crowd was free-form, operating under the loose control of Jerome Fanciulli, the publicist who managed the exhibition operation. The pilots were well paid, receiving 50 percent of the revenues resulting from an appearance. “We were taught by the Wrights that the Curtiss crowd was just no good at all,” Frank Coffyn recalled. “We turned our noses up at them. But we found out later on, by flying at the same meets, that they were a pretty nice bunch of fellows.”14
Pilots in the Wright camp were subject to much stricter supervision. All the standard family rules were in effect. There was no drinking, gambling, or flying on Sundays. The pay was m
uch less—a set fee of $20 per week and $50 for every day a man flew. For the Wright Company, it was an ideal arrangement. The brothers demanded $1,000 for for each day that they flew at a meet. The company received $6,000 per man for a standard one-week meet, plus any prize money earned; the pilot received $320. Small wonder that the year 1910 was a good one for the Wright Company, with profits approaching $100,000. Half of that amount went to the Wright brothers.15
The crowds flocked in increasing numbers to see the members of the two teams perform at makeshift flying fields—and their reaction fascinated the pilots. “They thought you were a fake, you see.” That was the way pioneer Curtiss aviator Beckwith (“Becky”) Havens remembered it. “There wasn’t anybody there who believed an airplane would really fly. In fact, they’d give odds. But when you flew, oh my, they would carry you off the field.”16
“Flight was generally looked upon as an impossibility,” Orville recalled, “and scarcely anyone believed in it until he had actually seen it with his own eyes.” People reacted in unexpected ways to their first sight of an airplane in the sky. Wilbur noticed an “intensity of enjoyment” and a sense of exhilaration among the spectators. He recalled one man who wandered away from the 1909 trials at Fort Myer muttering, over and over again, “My God! My God!”17
A Chicago clergyman attending his first air meet thought that he had never seen “such a look of wonder on the faces of the multitude. From the grey-haired man to the child, everyone seemed to feel that it was a new day in their lives.”18 A reporter noticed the same look on the faces of those attending the meet at Dominguez Field: “Thirty-thousand eyes are on those rubber-tired wheels, waiting for the miraculous moment—historical for him who has not witnessed it. Suddenly, something happens to those whirling wheels—they slacken their speed, yet the vehicle advances more rapidly. It is the moment of miracle.”19
The Bishop's Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright Page 49